Charlotte Perriand

France (1903–1999)

In her eight-decade career, Char­lotte Perriand contributed to count­less design projects that allowed her to exper­i­ment with mate­r­ial. She explored working with tubular steel furni­ture, natural pieces in ebonized wood, bamboo furni­ture in Japan, and more. Paying close atten­tion to the func­tion­al­ity of the furni­ture and the arrange­ment of the inte­rior envi­ron­ment, Perriand designed pieces that were meant to be comfort­ably used and enjoyed in a space, as evidenced in her famed 1959 daybed or curved-back LC7 chair. Her revo­lu­tion­ary user-centric approach helped estab­lish her as a seminal figure in the modernist design move­ment whose legacy endures to this day.

Not long after grad­u­at­ing from Ecole de L’Union Centrale de Arts Deco­rat­ifs in Paris, Perriand impressed critics with ​“Bar Under the Roof,” an instal­la­tion featur­ing an aluminum and chrome bar counter and card table presented at the Salon d’Automne in 1927. The show­case estab­lished her as an avant-garde talent to watch and wowed a personal icon of hers, Le Corbusier — who invited her to join his studio and work on furni­ture designs with him and his cousin Pierre Jean­neret. The trio went on to craft some of the most endur­ing modern furni­ture pieces of the 20th century, such as the widely collected LC4 chaise longue, today produced by Cassina.